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Comment by easychris | Hacker News Reader

The cities pay 50-150€/mo to the owners [1]. I wouldn't participate if I would own a bar/restaurant.

Slightly OT: A shopping mall in germany, where paying for the use of the toilet is voluntary (50Ct / use) makes on avg. ~300€/day, during christmas season up to 8000€/day [2]. If I would own a venue at a highly frequented place I'd rather request 50Ct from the user. ;)

[1] https://www.welt.de/regionales/koeln/article13794805/Nette-T... (german)

[2] http://waz.m.derwesten.de/dw/staedte/oberhausen/gladbecker-f... (german)

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This assumes that

1. Participating in the program will cause you additional costs

2. Participating will decrease the voluntary payments

I have no data to back this up but my gut feeling is that neither is true. People will prefer toilets in restaurants anyway and at least the locals are used to favour them over public toilets. My thesis is that putting up the "Nette Toilette" sticker will not draw more "customers".

When it comes to the voluntary payment: It's considered tipping money for the cleaning staff, so people will probably tip the same. And even if they did not it shouldn't make a difference for you as a restaurant owner, because it's not your money anyway. At least in theory...

Yes, you're right, I too think people would "tip" anyway. I just assumed that if you're participating in the program the cities may kind of forbid to ask for money.

Newbie question: is it really voluntary? When I was in Germany last year I used the toilets at a bar where I was a customer, and not understanding the etiquette/signs, I walked out without paying. But the "creepy guy sitting alone at a table right outside the toilets" started yelling at me loudly about Geld... at which point I understood he was the cleaner and tipped 2 Euro.

(I'm approaching this as an Australian, where public toilets and toilets in shopping malls / department stores are always free. But I don't mind a user-pays system.)

Most places where you have to pay, you usually have to pay up front. The yelling guy might just have called you names for being cheap, I certainly wouldn't expect toilets at a bar to have a mandatory fee.

Another scheme is usually found at Autobahn rest stops, where you actually have to pay for toilets, but get a voucher over the full amount that you can then use in their shops.

At a bar it's most probably voluntary. There are some toilets where you have to pay after your visit but normally they put a sign on it, if it's mandatory. I only know it if there is a funfair or some kind of it. Like this: http://www.kem-zelte.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/1-IMAG017...

I'd say it's a good habit to always throw 50 Ct on the table - except if the person is as agressive/unfriendly as you describe. ;)

>1. Participating in the program will cause you additional costs

I can't believe you would claim that point # 1 would be false.

You're talking about letting the world into your establishment to use the restroom. You should know the state most public toilets are in.

The city has now moved that into your restaurant or bar. Your employees will have to clean it, or you will have to pay for the cleaning services.

So I must say, 150euros seems extremely low for this service.

My second thought was that this could be easily exploited. I assume controllers verify that signs are not ripped down or obscured for all those receiving the grant but for 150 euro a month I see no large incentive to cheat in this program anyways.

> You should know the state most public toilets are in.

That's exactly my point. No one uses them, everyone goes to restaurants and pubs anyway - so nothing changes.

I don't know what dream city you live in but where I live, if you're not finding heroin addicts in public restrooms it's a good day.

But heroin addicts aside, you'll get drunk teenagers, tagging, careless behavior and even vandalism.

That's what I'm saying. Most people avoid public toilets and the initiative is a little compensation for a fact that restaurant owners can't change anyway. In my opinion it will not change peoples behaviour.

In this case your neighbor participating in the program puts you out of (the toilet) business!

I think the toilet business is only a good one on a large scale anyway: mostly due to fixed costs for paying the cleaning staff no matter if you operate a restroom with 1 or 20 seats.

BTW: I'm not sure about the neighbor. As I would only ask for a voluntary 50 Ct. there's no reason to prefer the other guys toilet. I assume my toilet would be preferred because it's cleaner (cause I'd pay more to my cleaning staff).

> (cause I'd pay more to my cleaning staff).

cleaning staff never gets a lot of money and if you need 50 ct to use your toilet it will probably not be the preferred one because people who pay direct money mostly think they can do whatever they want (they paid for it) so every use is more problematic than somebody who can use the toilet for free (exceptions confirm the rule).

depends. the 50c toilets are often significantly cleaner with automated washing between uses and similar stuff.

Except the neighbour has higher costs having to deal with cleaning the toilets that's not being offset by increased profits. TINSTAAFL or TINSTAAFT in this case.

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